Page 198 of Unbound

I side step a slash, left palm opening as I spray a jet of water against his inner thigh. The pressure of the blast makes him slide back, costing him balance as I spin inside his guard, flicking away another strike with my rapier. I use my momentum, pulling my elbow up and forward to slam beneath his chin.

Titus’ teeth clatter and he makes a pained sound.

I don’t give him time to recover. I stab upward, rapier finding the soft spot beneath his ribs. He gasps, eyes wide with shock, but the token at his neck flashes blue, and he freezes mid-fall, suspended in stasis. To my surprise, his elemental freezes too.

For a moment, he's completely still, and then his body falls back with a heavy thump to disappear into the thick mist. Only his curled, frozen fingers stick up above the fog.

The fleeing girl has stopped, watching us with wide eyes.

"Go," I tell her. "Find somewhere to hide. Malakai's people aren't worrying about the objective. They're just trying to take out anyone who isn't with them. Tell anyone you find to hide their token well. They’re taking it once stasis triggers and executing people while they’re dazed."

“Thanks, Nessa,” she says shakily, nodding before disappearing into the trees.

"That was unwise,"Typhon notes."He could have bested you."

"I couldn't just let her die."

"Your compassion may get us killed."

“And there’s no point surviving if I can’t live with myself.”

I have no way to know where the quarry is from here. I doubt I could even find my way back to the academy if I wanted to. There are sounds of struggle and fighting all around me. I hear magic flaring and see the bright lights of elemental attacks.

I press my back to a tree, eyes wildly scanning as I try to think of something resembling a plan. I can distantly feel Raith's presence through the tether, and it seems like he's slowly getting closer. Of course he is. He's coming for me. And knowing him, he's not letting anything slow him down.

If I wasn't worried about Mireen, Beck, Ambrose, and Brunhild, I would lay low and wait. But I need to find them. I can't risk them getting caught out alone.

With a hard swallow, I slowly move deeper into the trees. Bright green flashes to my right and someone screams. There's harsh laughter a moment later, then an explosion of blue light followed by cursing and shouts. I hear the clatter of weapons clashing, more shouting, someone cursing in frustration.

I look down and see my hand is shaking.

"Calm, angry human. We need to stay calm. Be ready for anything."

I take a shaky breath and nod my head. "Doing my best."

I freeze as movement catches my eye to the right. It is a blue shark's fin cutting through the mist a little ways ahead. My blood goes cold and I duck behind a tree, peeking out to make sure it's not coming closer.

The shark slices through the mist without a sound, and then I see it... Two waters hiding behind a large rock. They don't realize?—

I open my mouth to warn them but it's already too late. One of them is yanked under the mist with a strangled scream that is cut off instantly. The other makes it a few steps before the shark leaps above the mist and bites the back of their head, triggering their stasis immediately.

Malakai... the shark means he's close. That, or he simply told it to go out and hunt down anyone it could. The only saving grace is that he may not find their frozen forms beneath the mist. The shark may have just saved their lives.

It swims through the mist, curling around the rock to disappear in the distance, searching for more prey.

It takes all my willpower to start moving again, but I do it. I remind myself that I've trained as hard as anyone here. Maybe harder. I'm unbound. I'm tethered to a fucking ancient water dragon. I can do this. I need to do this, because my friends might need me.

The sounds of struggle are already becoming less frequent. I stop twice when I see organized groups of five or more jogging through the trees like patrolling soldiers. Everyone else seems to be scattered in small groups.

"Perhaps Malakai's groups were teleported in together?"Typhon guesses as we watch another group pass far ahead in the distance, trailed by a team of deadly elementals.

"I wouldn't doubt it. The corruption goes all the way to the fucking top, apparently. Titus and Corpus may have just split from their groups to hunt down more people before they could find their groups."

I get back to searching. I have no idea how I'm going to find anyone like this, so I start taking the risk of whisper yelling for my friends when I think there aren't any enemy groups nearby. "Mireen? Beck?" I whisper.

A branch cracks to my left, seemingly in response.

"Ambrose?"

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